“Lucky us.” Lana shook her head. “What do we get out of letting him know that we’re onto him? Or taking it straight to the Russians? He’s got to be working for them. I agree with you. No Ukrainian on his own, I don’t care how bright, gets the high-level training to be some hacker’s weapons expert on a nuclear sub.”
“It certainly gives us a better idea of how these terrorists could have overcome all the safeguards on that sub. I know DOD has been studying those scenarios but they couldn’t figure out how it could possibly be done without Gomez, I mean Lisko, being part of the attack. Somebody trained him well.”
“Somebody Russian,” Lana said, wishing she could vaporize the Kremlin.
“This would certainly appear to confirm that.”
“Let’s go see Holmes.”
The deputy director was in his office with two Chinese officials, according to Donna Warnes, who raised her thin eyebrows the slightest bit when she imparted that information. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Holmes’s assistant nodded toward the couch. Though sleep deprived, Lana couldn’t bring herself to sit. They had two substantial leads: a woman with a sick cancer-ridden child and the wherewithal to make herself known to one person only — Lana. And Jensen’s identification of Grisha Lisko, a.k.a. Hector Gomez, whose swarthy looks and penchant for ethnic typecasting had let him flourish on a nuclear sub that he now, in effect, commanded.
Holmes ducked out of his inner sanctum to confer with them. Jensen nodded as Lana revealed the news about Lisko. She then briefed the deputy director about the individual going by the name Galina Bortnik.
“This woman, if that’s what she is, hasn’t called you yet?”
“No,” Lana answered. “She has not.”
“If she does, record it.”
“I plan to.”
“We’ll want to run it through voice analysis.”
“What if she wants to meet me?” Lana always tried to anticipate the next step.
Holmes shook his head slowly. She had known him long enough to recognize the gesture not as a negative response but a stalling pattern.
“What have we got to lose?” she asked him. “They’re launching nuclear warheads.”
“You,” he said simply. “We could lose you. You could be the prize in their response to this whole Internet forum gambit.”
His last word resonated for Lana, for it made her realize she hadn’t thought once about gambling since the real world stakes had escalated, much as last year she’d escaped any desire for poker by trying to stop the assault on the grid. Even the worst news, she realized, had a flip side.
Lana returned to her office, telling Jensen to get everything he could on Lisko and Dernov. She briefed him about the latter, adding, “I know it’s not much.”
“It’s a start.”
“Or a dead end. That’s what worries me more than them going after me — that they’re burning up our time so they can burn down Antarctica.”
But in the next thirty minutes she found emails between a clinic and Dr. Kublakov about six-year old Alexandra, with all of the girl’s medical records attached to the last message. If this were a sting — and Lana still couldn’t rule that out — it was certainly growing more elaborate all the time. But that’s how stings work, she cautioned herself.
She also found passport photos of the mother and daughter, smiling when she saw that they really looked like two peas from a very cute pod. But what heightened Lana’s interest was learning that Galina had been a regional director for Greenpeace. She confirmed it was the same woman with the organization’s staff photos from two years ago. The confirmation didn’t rule out a sting, but it made the likelihood at least marginally smaller.
Lana’s phone rang. She took a steadying breath, then saw it was Emma. “Mom, how could they do that to the world? Why?” She was crying. “All those scientists are dead. People are freaking out. They’ve got another bomb all ready to go. Are you going to stop them? This is crazy.”
“Everybody is trying very hard,” Lana answered obliquely, as always.
“Mom, you have to stop them.” Emma, as always, ignored her mother’s attempt to distance herself from any intelligence work. “Did you hear about Miami? And that subway in New York? That was so horrible. Can you imagine being in one of those cars when that happened?” Emma was crying so hard that she had trouble talking.
“Do you have your keys, and are you with Esme?” Lana knew that Emma was staying with Tanesa. She wanted to get her and Tanesa’s family out of Anacostia before it succumbed to flooding.
“Yes on both counts,” Emma said.
“Please let me speak to her.”
“Sure, but I need to talk to you about—”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, Emma, but this is urgent.”
Tanesa’s mom got on the phone. “Emma said you needed to speak to me.”
“Yes, thank you. Anacostia is going to flood. I’d like your family and Emma to relocate to our house. I know that’s asking a lot, but I have access to projected flooding in the District, and you’ll be in the middle of it.”
“Wow, that’s a lot to take in. I was worried about that. You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I have my sister and her family two blocks over.”
“Our house is big, too big. Have her come, too.”
“She has four kids.”
“Good, we’ll have plenty of company,” Lana said without pause. “We’re all in this together.”
“We’ll bring all the food we’ve got.”
“Good idea. But traffic is going to be horrible. Is your gas tank full?”
“Topped off two days ago, and I haven’t done anything but food shop since.”
“Great, but you must hurry, Esme.” Lana glanced at her watch. “May I say good-bye to Emma?”
“She’s right here. And I want to thank you, Lana.”
“Are you kidding, the thanks are all mine.” Lana couldn’t begin to express the gratitude she felt toward Tanesa and her mom. Emma had grown up so wonderfully in their presence, which only made Lana feel, once again, inept as a parent.
“Mom, it was better last year when the grid went down.” Emma was no longer crying. “At least I was doing something.”
“And you did it with incredible courage.”
“Now I can’t stop anything. I feel like an idiot crying.”
“Emma Elkins, you are not an idiot. Is your dad there?” Speaking of… Lana let that thought trail off unfinished.
“Him?” Emma said indignantly. “He’s all upset because his new rental is flooded and he’s not sure he’ll get his deposit back. I just want him to go home.”
“Emma, all of you — and that’s going to have to include him — are going to head to our house. Right—”
Lana had another call coming in. The call, she thought. “Em, I have to go.”
“Mom! I have to talk to you.”
“If you want me to try to stop this, I have to take another call. I love you.”
“Bye.” Her daughter hung up.
Lana brought up the call. “Hello?”
No voice greeted her. Thirty seconds passed. Lana watched them go by on her watch. It felt like the longest silence she’d ever experienced on a phone. It was as if the caller were still debating whether to speak to her. Finally, Lana said, “I have a daughter, too.”
She heard a breath and then a woman said, “I know. That is why I am talking to you.”
CHAPTER 16
Oleg knew he should have been celebrating. Numero Uno hacker had scored a hit on Antarctica. The whole world was in chaos. And Russia was doing very well. He could tell the Russian President was doing all he could not to gloat. Like he was winking at Oleg right through the TV when he said the greatest country in the world had long been prepared for the worst. “The weaker nations,” the President didn’t specify, “did not take proper precautions.” The President had shaken his head wearily and added, “Very sad.”